The greatest demand for the rhinos' horns comes from China and Southeast Asia, where many believe they have medicinal powers.

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Yet public campaigns have worked to counter that myth. By October 2014, the percentage of people in Vietnam who bought rhino horns had dropped from 41 to 3 percent.

Rhino horns are also worth little compared to the sale of live rhinos. The IUCN estimates South Africa alone lost $25 million of potential revenue in 2015 due to poaching.

South Africa conserves almost 80 percent of the continent's rhinos but has also suffered the most poaching of any country since 2008. For the first time since that year, though, poaching in South Africa decreased slightly.

The black rhino population, a critically endangered species, is growing by a rate of roughly 3 percent per year. However, poaching is still the main reason their numbers aren't growing by the target rate of 5 percent.